A Little More Privacy

It is something that a lot of you will think I harp on about quite a bit... But being as private and secure as you can be online is really a no-brainer.

Aside from all the spyware out there, and all the viruses, and every crafty bugger trying to send you several million quid from Nigeria, there is a "new" problem facing people now.

And I am not talking about Internet Doomsday. Keep your computer safe, you'll be fine.

No, I am talking about all the little bits and bobs that dwell on your computer and inside the web pages you are visiting, tracking you, following you, seeing what you're doing online pretty much everywhere you go. Sometimes they are called trackers, sometimes beacons, other times bugs... But they are everywhere, even the places you honestly don't think you will find them.

Now, without even doing it intentionally, without adding anything into the code, do you know that 0ddness itself (I have now discovered!) has five different sites watching you? Facebook knows you're here (thanks to the friend-connect thing), Google Adsense AND FriendConnect know you are here, Statcounter knows you are here, and Technorati knows you are here.

These are things that, yes, I have added to 0ddness. The social plugin I just assumed was for people to click "Like", AdSense is NOT me, FriendConnect is so other people with Google Accounts can "like" 0ddness directly, StatCounter is my hit counter, and Technorati is a blog catalogue, and I ASSUMED, just a little button.

Five sites, all seeing who you are, where you are, where you've been...

Shockingly, The Pirate Bay (which my ISP wasn't told to block!) has zero on its homepage.

0ddness.co.uk

Sky News

Yahoo Homepage

I heard about a fancy little bit of software, however, and decided to give it a bash, see what's what and how necessary it might be. It's called Ghostery, and can be installed on Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer - though I COULDN'T get it working on the last (shocking). It's free, too, so it's not like you're paying for something you aren't sure about.

Installing it is as difficult as clicking a couple of buttons, and once you've run through the three or four setup screens, you're good to go. I've left the alert window set to ON so I can see just how many people are trying to follow me around, and so far, most sites have four or five - some have lots more mind you!

I've currently got mine set to block everything and everyone because they are all baaaastards mode, but will go through and allow something things... StatCounter, and Google Friend Thingie being the main two, BUT there are well over 800 different "things" that it can block.

Next time you are wondering how it is that the banner ad on the side of a page is strangely specific to the thing you were looking for just this morning, these little tracking things are why.

And now you know.

Sidenote: I should also point out that Firefox has a feature to tell websites not to follow you anyway. I don't know if it works or not, but it can be found under TOOLS>OPTIONS>PRIVACY>Tell Websites I Do Not Want To Be Tracked.

And honestly, if you are still insisting on using Internet Explorer, there's no helping you. Install either Firefox or Chrome, AND make sure you keep everything up to date on your machine. And don't forget the Anti-Virus either!!


PS: If you really ARE worried about INTERNET DOOMSDAY!!! then fret not. The 9th July will be a non-event, much like the other End Of The World scenario that was THE Y2K BUG!!! Read more about it here, and check your computer here.



(Yeeeeah I used the {BLINK} HTML tags! Bring back the 90s baby!)
(I am shocked and saddened that if you are viewing this in Chrome, you cannot see my Olde Skool use of the {BLINK} tags. Firefox works fine though!)
(Aw it doesn't work in IE either... So stuff you, Old Skool BLINK tags. Stuff you)

Digital Darwinism

Following a conversation on someones status a week or so ago, I am now a firm believer in Digital Darwinism.

For those of you that somehow don't know, Darwin is the chap that pushed evolution, survival of the fittest and all that stuff.  Weak species either die out or evolve to adapt to their weakness; the strong ones survive, the weak ones don't, simple as that.

So, with the world being pretty much digital, it STILL amazes me how many people don't have a basic grasp of online safety.  Since I started playing online, being aware of flaws in the system, it is clear the biggest flaw with the internet is the users themselves.  It's the users that exploit holes in operating systems (ie, Microsoft constantly fixing flaws in Windows), it's the users that try to steal peoples data (PSN, anyone!), it's the users that write viruses to steal/destroy, and, perhaps most importantly, it's the USERS that spread all these viruses around.

Facebook is no longer new by any standards, and those on there should be well aware that there are knobheads constantly trying to steal your personal details or infect your computer with viruses or other malware, yet every day, I log on to find a dozen or more people have "shared links" that are so blatently dodgy, I don't understand HOW they have fallen for it.

Again!

I have always banged on about internet security.  A decent Anti-Virus, a decent Malware scanner, and the Windows Firewall enabled, and you're good to go.  No, you don't need to pay for any of these things, they are all free online.  I've gone on and on about it, but clearly, the message is NOT getting through.

And thus begins the Digital Darwinism.

No longer am I going to tell people there's a good chance they have a virus or malware on their computer.  No longer am I going to tell people the links they are clicking are taking them to a site that is putting data-stealing stuff on their machines.  No longer am I going to tell people that the "Really Urgent Warning About Something" they are forwarding to all their friends (just because it says so) is actually a hoax, and all you are doing is annoying everyone.

My theory is this.  Eventually, these people are going to have so many viruses and shite on their machines, they won't be able to load windows, and thus won't get online to spread more crap.  They are taken out of the Digital Ecosystem, and no longer able to spread their rubbish around.

I know, one down, a billion to go.  BUT if everyone that KNOWS internet safety were to remain silent, eventually, all the spanners will disappear off the internet.

Want to be spared the cull? It's simple:

Download and install Avast Antivirus Free Edition
Obviously, you need to keep it up to date, and register it once a year with a valid email address. No, they don't spam you or sell on their info. BEFORE installing it, ensure you have uninstalled any other Antivirus software. Before you do this, DISCONNECT from the internet.

Download and install MalwareBytes Anti Malware
Keep it up to date, scan every week or two.

Download and install cCleaner
Run it once a week - it will remove dead files, old files, unused system files and keep your hard drive in good working order.

Enable Windows Automatic Updates
If it's up to date, it's harder for people to use the flaws in windows to get to your personal data.

Enable the Windows Firewall
A final line of defense against any intrusion onto your system.

Ignore ANY message that tells you to forward to all your friends
If something says "THIS happened!" and asks to be sent to everyone, don't do it - you're just gumming up facebook/email servers with something that invariably is false. Five weekends in a month every 800 years, apparent virus warnings, scary stories...

Ignore ANYTHING that tells you to do something before you can view/read something else
Especially on Facebook, but generally - installing software before viewing a page, referring five friends before viewing a video, posting something to your wall to see that shocking article - there is usually nothing there but bad news.

If you like a quote, VERIFY IT before spreading it
When Osama was offed, everyone was forwarding various quotes, especially "I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy."  You were had - MLK never said it. Just because a friend did it, doesn't mean it's true.

If something seems to good to be true, it's probably a scam
Billionnare sharing their wealth? Charity donation of eight figures for you to help clear? A large corperation donating everyone time you forward an email? Sorry, all lies.

If you're in doubt, the final four can be EASILY checked.  There's this thing called "Google" you can use.  Best bet, type in what it is you are reading.  If you put it into the search box and hit enter, go through a few results to see just what it is you are forwarding.  Otherwise, the best three places to look online are Snopes, About Urban Legends, and Sophos.  All three sites are up to date, and full of info about scams, viruses, and let you know what happens if you DO click that link three friends sent you apparently out of the blue.

There are other things you can do for safety.  Changing from Internet Explorer to Firefox, using Gmail for your email, run Facebook in secure mode... Additionally, Sophos have a Facebook page that has lots of warnings of virus-apps, scams and outright lies. Become a Fan, and you will get updates from them when the proverbial crap is circulating.

By all means, you can ignore this, you can disregard all this information, but when your computer falls over and your personal data is going down the loo, remember, you COULD have stopped it - you just chose not to. And eventually, when you're offline, the internet is minus one user spreading crap!

Password Security

I like to think that I am pretty computer savvy.

No, scratch that.  I AM computer savvy, if you go by the number of calls that start with "I've just been on my computer and..."  And quite often here, or on various CHD Lists, I can be found banging on about computer security, software, and so on and so on.

So, this morning, going through the blogs I read, I came across Robert Gale's A Welsh View. He'd linked to a site that "rates" your password, telling you how long it'd take to crack.  The password of his he used ranked in at 154 Nonillion Years.  That's 154+ FIFTY FOUR zeros.

Now, I DO tend to use the same two passwords for my security.  The sites I'm not really worried about, I use what I consider a "weak" password, but my proper passwords I use a strong one.  Letters, numbers...

So, I put in my strong password for it to check, and... well...

Robert Gales Password "IN YEARS):

My Password (IN DAYS)

SOMETHING tells me I need to rework my password.

Anyways, the site you want to visit is the How Secure Is My Password site, and see how you rank :D

Windows 7 - First Impressions

First off, apologies for the image here - for some reason, Blogger is telling me the images I am trying to use are being rejected by the server, so screw them ;)

Anyways - after managing to get Windows 7 for my Acer Aspire 8930G, I spent a couple of days backing up my files, downloading drivers and what-not...  Taking a deep breath - and making sure I had my Vista recovery discs to hand - I put the disc in, rebooted and selected Boot From Disc...

Now, the last install I did of any kind was Windows XP, and those installs often seemed quite hit and miss.  I DO have Vista on my actual computer, but in the three years I've owned it, its never needed a reinstall.  However, last week, I DID reinstall Kellies old laptop with Vista, and it took several hours, but being that it's just a bog-standard laptop, it didn't have any problems or anything.

So, with XP and Vista installs under my belt, part of me was dreading a completely New-To-Me system install.

After 15 minutes of it doing it's thing, it rebooted and - lo and behold - gave me the "Starting Windows for the first time" message...

Now, I should interject at this point, this is actually the second time I saw this message while doing this install.  However, the first time, I got an error saying "Unable to complete install" and it froze up.  So I called a mulligan on that one, and am ignoring it as teething problems.

So, Windows did a few more whirs and clicks, "Creating Desktop" and voila!  It loaded.  So, being the smart person I am, I open my drive of pre-downloaded driver files and... er... blonde.  For some reason, I had downloaded all the Windows7 Professional files, not Ultimate.  And, not wanting to tempt fate, I decided to bin them, and fired up the wireless.

It connected pretty much instantly - no hassles with drivers there then.  Loaded Internet Explorer - for the sole purpose of downloading Firefox - and installed my new browser.  Straight on, loaded up and online without any hassles, and set to downloading all the updated drivers from the Acer site, and the graphics drivers from nVidia.

While waiting half an hour or so for that little lot to download, I set to fiddling with settings and buttons and everything else.  Mainly, you can tell that it's very very similar to Vista, but with enough differences to make you hunt around and figure out various things here and there.  As usual, I stripped the Start Menu down, taking most of the crap off of there I never use, then set to fiddling with themes and background images.  Then, I just sorted of wandered around the Control Panel, playing with various things.

I DID notice that - as I had been told by James in the first place - Win7 has a LOT of drivers with it, and will know what most things are.  And, to give it it's dues, it recognised a lot of the things that are already on here.  The Webcam, Bluetooth, Wireless, Graphics... All on, albeit with propriety drivers.  Things like the Touchpad, Fingerprint Reader and Media Controls - they needed to be downloaded.  But, just to make sure I had everything up to date, I got the lot.

All the drivers installed, and a couple of reboots later, my computer was fresh as a daisy, running like a dream, full 1920x1080 resolution, 5.1 sound... All very nice.

So, next up came software.  Avast, MalwareBytes Anti Malware, CCleaner, MSN Messenger, Adobe Reader, WinAmp, WinZip...  All the while making sure I am downloading the 64bit versions where applicable.  Everything installed without any problems.  Here and there, Windows DID ask if that program installed correctly, and as far as I could tell, it was more like Vista having a panic attack asking if you're really really sure you want to do something.

Quite by accident, I clicked on a video file in one of my folders, and, expecting to get an error message to pop up, I was more surprised that it actually played.  I checked my download list, and hadn't installed any of the codecs needed - usually I have to install two codecs for video, one or two for sounds... But surprisingly, this worked without hassle.

So, being a glutton for punishment, I tried another one, which worked.  And the next, and the next too.  So, as it stands, I haven't installed any of my codecs for anything.  Which is a bonus.

After all my software was on and running, I pressed the "Update Windows" button.  When I did this on Kellies Vista laptop last week, I had to chuckle at the 108 Important Updates, and further 60 or so Recommended Updates, so thinking it'd be similar I stood back... In total, there were 51 Important, and 3 Recommended.  And it turned out Windows had already downloaded them for me.  So after ten minutes of installing, and a reboot...  Job Done.

In total, I think I went from a freshly formatted hard drive, to a fully installed and updated machine in less than three hours.  Most of which was the computer whirring, or downloading, or installing, or updating.

It has to be said, I love Windows7.  I runs well, it's fast, it's very pretty, and while I like the feature of the random wallpaper, being so anally retentive, I don't like them all, so will have to get a load I DO like!  I like how you can pin things to the taskbar, and how the jumplists work.  I like the system tray customisation tool, the new device manager, and I love the fact you can actually remove Internet Explorer...

I'm sure over the coming days and weeks I will start fiddling deeper and deeper into the system... But Windows7 gets a big fat thumbs up from me :)